Ding dong etc...

An interesting if grim set of results from the latest Guardian/ICM survey. Asked to assess Margaret Thatcher's term in office and it's legacy a narrow majority of people look favourably on her destroying the basis of social democracy, in this case trade unionism and council housing, but oppose the (some would say logical) result of that destruction, structural unemployment and widening class divisions.

Now, we're Gramsicans; we take it as read that median subaltern consciousness in average times is contradictory, that's why we organise. And of course this is just one survey, and surveys are not neutral examinations. But, if it is true, this political agnosticism, people wanting the ends but not the means of social democracy, suggests why a coherent anti-austerity movement has proved difficult to put together.

The Tory party - it's like a lottery that rewards stupidity...

It must be a slow week for the Daily Mail. There's clearly not enough immigrants-gets-free-porsche stories to go round, so they printed this:

Britain’s biggest trade union has set up a new wing – which can only be joined by the unemployed. Tory MPs said it was ‘scandalous’ that Unite, led by the hard-Left former docker Len McCluskey, was trying to exploit benefit claimants for political and financial purposes.

Outrageous! It's for Poundland and Tesco to exploit unemployed people! 

In return for £26 a year in ‘subs’,  the jobless members of Unite Community receive perks including discount designer glasses, advice on ‘claiming the right benefits’ and a  pre-paid debit card offering cashback in high street stores.

Exploited, to the tune of 50 pence a week... and they're going to tell the unemployed what their rights are? For shame! Also, why the scare quotes around subs? Sub is short for subscription fee. Don't they have those at the Daily Heil? Perhaps direct debits are an underhand form of communism? I don't know. But here's where it gets really silly:

Last night Tory deputy chairman Sarah Newton said: ‘It is scandalous that Labour’s largest donor, Unite – which backed Ed Miliband for the leadership – is looking to politically mobilise the unemployed and plug its falling membership subs.  

‘The public expects trade unions to protect the rights of their members in the workplace – not try to fill gaps in their funding off the back of the unemployed. Is  Ed Miliband really comfortable taking money from a union that  is acting in such a cynical way?

Cynical? Well, of course, Tories are experts on British trade union history, and are only to happy to respect the terms of collective bargaining. It's a shame then that somebody who knows so much about trade unionism and only has it's best interests at heart (you shouldn't be filling any gaps in funding off the backs of h the unemployed, oh no) could have forgotten about The National Unemployed Workers Movement of the 1920s and 30s. What was Sarah Newton MP thinking, eh?

What does the Labour Party stand for...?

Ed Miliband won’t break the public sector pay freeze. Ed Balls meanwhile won’t promise to reverse public service cuts and says hard times will last longer than people had hoped (which begs the question, how long do you ‘hope’ hard times will last for?). 

While my living standards are being driven down and down in order to pay for Bankers in Need, I would be a fool to expect any help or hope from the Labour Party (and the same applies to my family, friends, co-workers, comrades and class). Miliband’s party does not standfor sectional interests, and by 'sectional interests' he means my interests. 

So who does?

I can has strikes?

It’s approaching conference time, and TUC leader Brendan Barber is putting out press releases about the stark condition British society is being forced to endure. There is an undeniable element of “I’m still here”, like Len McLuskey’s occasional fighting talk, and Brendan Barber’s plan, his only plan, is to ask nicely, but it is also the run up to a major demonstration: A Future That Works.

It is an A to B march, and we have been here before. But we cannot pull strikes out of a hat, not in our present condition. The fact that the British trade union movement seems to need a set-piece demonstration to work itself up for any kind of confrontation with the government (not forgetting how quickly these confrontations are also abandoned to apathy), should be cause for debate. I am a trade union member, not a battle hardened convenor or rep but enough of a member to know we need a change of direction.

We have been here before with mass demonstrations. We need to find a way for demonstrations to become strikes and for strikes to stick. We need what’s known as a rank and file perspective. It’s all very well saying people need confidence before we start building, but we will be forever be in the hands of the likes of Brendan Barber and Dave Prentis, the kind of leaders who would not stir themselves even if they were the last union members left alive, let alone in work. There’s nothing like starting now to build confidence.

None the less, let’s be on the October 20th demo, in large numbers. The government and 

the mass media will want to pretend austerity is popular, or at least accepted, for as long 

and hard as possible. A big demonstration will be another blow to the Tories.

Stop the Tories, stop them now...

It is sometimes suggested that trade unionism and politics are two separate activities and that they should remain so. Last November millions of public sector trade unionists struck in opposition to changes in their pensions the headline figure being a 3% increase in members contributions, basically a special income tax to pay levied on those workers to pay for bankers in need. 61% of the public backed the strikers against the government. The point being strikes change public opinion, the bigger and more significant the strikes the better the change.

 Since then various union leaderships have tried to abandon the struggle, other leaders have tried to downgrade it. They have been doing what union leaders always do without sufficient rank and file pressure put on them. Since then the NHS destruction bill has passed (without so much as a national demonstration, let alone ballot from any of the health unions). We've also seen Gideon Osborne's fuck you budget, complete with the abolition of the 50p tax rate, balanced by decreased tax allowances for pensioners, and working families. Michael Gove's nutty schemes have kept on coming. We've even had ministers advising us to store petrol in the event of a non-existent strike. Nuttiest of all we've seen goverment proposals to withdraw housing benefit from under 25s and Tory MPs suggesting prisoners should do litter picking in chain gangs, how that's supposed to make Britain's refuse collectors feel I don't know.

 The Tories only do these crazy things because they reckon they can get away with it. Trade unions are the core of the opposition in the country. They MUST fight.

There you go peasants...

You've had your class struggle, now get back to the field. The truly distressing thing is there are no substantial concessions. You will work longer, harder and get less for your trouble; maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but someday soon, and for the rest of your life. Does anyone honestly think the Tories will stop at this? Certain union leaders I suppose... but you wouldn't be unreasonable if you felt like the light at the end of the tunnel was a train headed your way.

Well done PCS for standing up to this. The union must stand alone, yet again, and that is for shame on the other union leaders. Give the civil servants, and anyone else who wants to stand up to the Tories properly, your support.

Why do the rich keep getting richer?

It might have something to do with union membership.